I was in town at the appointed hour of the interview, so I sat in my car alone and received the call on my cell – I had four bars. Everything was going pretty well – the interviewer, Mike, asked questions that gave me plenty of room to share some good stuff. We had been talking for about 45 minutes and I was feeling pretty comfortable. Was his plan to lure me into a sense of wellbeing and openness before he dropped a bomb on me? In an unexpected instant, he became the hard-hitting journalist and asked, “How is your marriage?”

Did he say “how long have you been married?” “How is my marriage?”

“Yes, how is your marriage?”

“Hmm. Interesting question.” Pregnant pause. “Let me say first of all that I have a good marriage and a happy marriage… but it’s not as good as it could be. And this wouldn’t be any surprise for my husband to read, he’s in it too. Probably a lot of what we are working through is consequences of my past, and his past too. Mike, are you hearing this echo? Mike? Hello?”

I looked down at my cell and realized the call had dropped. Gads! Of all times to lose a call! He called me back and same thing – an echo – and then I lost the call within seconds. What had happened? Across the street my pastor and his son happened to be working on a house. I ran over and asked if I could use one of their cell phones. “What’s the matter, do you have an echo?” he asked.

Oh, no! It wasn’t me. We decided it had to do with the tower. So I hopped in my car and starting driving to the next nearest tower. Along the way I thought, OK, this could be good. I can have a chance to think through what I was going to say. And so I did rehearse my answer a little. That next nearest tower didn’t work, so on to the next. By this time, 20 minutes had passed and I was wondering if Mike was thinking I was avoiding the question by playing that “crshhh – what?-You’re-breaking-up!-I can’t-hear-crshhh-you” bit. I hated looking like I was dodging the question that way.

When I finally got free of the echo and got through to Mike’s office, I got his voicemail. While I was driving around trying to find a clear signal, it came time for Mike to enter Tuesday morning prayer meeting at his work, which is why I got his voicemail.

We finished the interview about three hours later. I don’t know if God spoke to him during that prayer meeting or He didn’t need to because the opportunity had passed, but when Mike picked up the interview again, he started with, “Tell me about your husband – what does he do?” And we never worked our way back to the subject of my marriage.

I’ll admit I was very irritated by the whole ordeal and thought, Why me! But with just a little reflection, I realized that I was interrupted just at the right time. In the interest of full disclosure/honesty and because I’m such a rookie, I’m sure I would have been much too forthcoming about my marriage. Inquiring minds may want to know, but does that mean they should? Thank God He put a gag order on me in the form of technical difficulties at just the right moment.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I saw evidence of progress in my life and in that of my family – and it was nothing short of (you guessed it!) miraculous.

There’s no sugar-coating it: My family has issues. I won’t even try to go into them; suffice to say we meet a textbook criterion of “dysfunctional.” And so when it seemed probable that 22 of my family members would be together in one place – my house – for the long Thanksgiving weekend, there was widespread trepidation: Can we pull this off? Can we have a happy holiday without inadvertently pushing a combination of buttons that results in an atomic explosion? As some mapped escape routes and others looked for fallout shelters, I decided to proactively pray: Dear Father, prepare the hearts of the people who will be at my house during this holiday. Help us to reflect your love – and especially to Anita, the one adult in our family who does not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Widespread trepidation escalated to near panic when on the Saturday before the holiday, I got a call from my sister Evelyn asking if it would be OK if they came up on Friday after Thanksgiving. “They” are my dad, his wife Nora, and their three children, my siblings Billy, Evelyn and John.  But this was not just five more places to set at the already overcrowded table. This visit would end a seven-year silence between my family and my dad’s. (What! I told you we were dysfunctional!)

Again, without going into issues, about seven years ago, my stepmother and I decided to stop pretending we like each other. And then the silence – which I felt most acutely in not being able to see my brothers and sister grow up.

I had actually come to terms with having no relationship with my dad and I had made peace with him through a letter. But Nora was a harder case.

One day a mutual friend called and gave me a good report about Nora. She told me things she had done that just didn’t compute. That was not the Nora I knew. God began to work on me to apologize to Nora.

I am slowly working on memorizing the Sermon on the Mount and one of the scriptures I’m given to meditate on is Matthew 5:23-24: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” One day God stopped me in my tracks to tell me that my gift – my daily sacrifice – is out of order while my brother (stepmother) has something against me. I thank God for such revelations, and simultaneously dread such revelations. My first inclination is, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” This followed quickly by a realization that now that God has put this blip on my radar, to ignore it is willful sin against Him. It so irks to be hemmed in like that!

So within a day or two, I sat down, prayed, and wrote a letter with the express purpose of being reconciled to my stepmother. Thank God I cannot remember anything the letter said, though I feel certain it must have contained an apology.

The letter went unanswered, as I suspected it would. Until now: the rubber was about to hit the road and I was about to find out if I had really forgiven her and wanted to be forgiven. Could I really love her like Christ commands us to? My proactive prayers took on new fervor: Dear Father, help me to open my home to my dad and Nora and to extend to them the same hospitality I would to anyone I’ve invited into my home. Help me to forget the past, ignore the future and just focus on being like Christ in the present.

God gave me a triple miracle answer to prayer. First of all, throughout the four-day weekend, my family got along so well! There were no “explosions,” no casualties and we even had an extended time of thanksgiving between dinner and dessert on Thursday that not only honored God but demonstrated that we, as individuals and a family, had moved more toward the likeness of Christ. Secondly, God’s grace was sufficient for me. Although I was nervous when my dad and his family first arrived and I stood off, busying myself with dinner and other “Martha” activities, as the first night of their visit drew to a close, the walls came down and they were welcome guests in my home. For these two things I had prayed and my prayers were answered.

The third miracle was a surprise. On Sunday afternoon, as everyone was about to go their separate ways, my dad said, “Let’s have a word of prayer.” He said, “It’s really good to see you all together. It’s…” He got choked up and could only give us a thumbs-up as tears filled his eyes and blood rushed to his face. Then Nora, who was standing beside him, broke the silence. I wish I could quote what she said, but the truth is that I was in such awe to hear what she was saying that I’m left with only a general impression of what she said. In one surreal moment, time stood still and I was able to take in the expression on my husband’s face, appreciate the significance of our family circle gathered under the deer-horn chandelier that I had made from Grandpa’s hunting trophies, and look around the room full of my father’s offspring, frozen in reverence – even the babies! Maybe some of my family who read this can add in the comments a quote from what Nora said, but I do know that she apologized to all of us, to me specifically, and for hurting my dad. In sum, these were words that the Nora of seven years ago would not have been able to say. It was a testimony of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit and proof that she and I share the same predestination.

Dad prayed. Everyone exchanged hugs and then loaded up in their cars and took off. In 15 minutes the house was empty, and yet still full with the warmth of Christian and family love.

Last week, God spoke to me to ask for prayer for it. Honestly, it took a lot of courage because I was afraid I would doubt – that’s doubt compounded. But I did pray. Then in prayer meeting on Saturday night, I asked for prayer for it – that the spot would be gone before I go to the doctor next month for an annual exam.

I bet you can guess what comes next, after all, this is a blog about miracles… This morning the spot is gone. I can see where it was, there’s a light impression of it still, but there’s no lump there. It’s the slightest bit tender, like rubbing on a scabbed over wound, but there’s no lump there. Praise God.

Do you think he’s a Christian? (See below for the answer.) Salvation comes with a simple confession of sin and profession in Christ as the Son of God and risen Savior – not with the way we dress, the music we listen to, whether we’re circumcised or the food we eat (right, Peter?) Once we’re saved our entire existence should be subject to the Lord’s will, but for most of us, actually subjecting the whole package to God’s will takes a lifetime. I know I’m still working on a couple of little things called worry and doubt – anybody else have a problem with those? (oopsie – started to rant!)
As you can see, I feel a passionately about this cultural sensitivity thing and I continue to believe that the vast majority of mission work carried out by foreigners tramples all over the sensitivities of culture. It’s the Ugly American – in missions work! Ugh.
So, imagine my surprise as I ventured into publishing on account of the book Walking Man: A Modern Missions Experience in Latin America. Then, so much more when I heard myself saying, “I’m organizing a missions trip,” – a trip to build a school to train missionaries, no less! What is going on here? It can only be explained thusly: God works in mysterious ways.
In some effort to explain this incongruity, I have to point out the school we worked on is going to prepare Latin Americans to serve in missions among … Latin Americans. By and large, there is not a cultural chasm to bridge (or not!). I feel good about that. Yet there remains the cultural mine field between Catholics and Evangelical Christians. Many Latin American Evangelical Christians wrongly assume that to be Catholic is to be lost in sin – again, they confuse culture with salvation.
So, I’m back – full circle – continuing on that family heritage of lending my hand to the Great Commission, and I’m happy about it. Further adding to my joy is that I am partnering with a couple that my grandmother supported near the end of her ministry and the beginning of theirs. And now my son and daughter have had the joy of contributing to their ministry – and we also support their son’s work in Brazil. Kind of a neat intergenerational thing going on between our two families who have only one thing in common: the same Heavenly Father.
Oh, yea, this guy: I can’t say for sure, but he seems to be making a profession of faith.

The rules of this award are that if the blog recipient accepts the awards she posts the One Lovely Blog Award image on her blog, includes a link back to the giver of the award’s blog, and passes the award on to other blogs.

So, now it is my turn to pass this award on. And the winner is… 110% Surrendered? – a blog by a young woman who calls herself simply His Daughter. Love the blog and I can only hope my daughter will be so committed when she reaches that age.

The Saturday night before she left for Mexico City, I attended prayer meeting and was asking for prayer for this situation when I saw a parallel with an ordeal I went through some years back when I believed God was telling me to give a truck to a man in Savannah. This humble servant in Savannah had been very kind to me and helpful in a time when I was in need. He lived on next to nothing and for many years had been driving a truck so beat up that it would only be on the road in a state without inspection laws (that’s Georgia). He could literally pull the entire steering wheel off effortlessly – it was actually quite dangerous.

I was living in Arkansas at the time and I felt God tugging me to buy this man another truck – used of course! We were going to South Carolina in July and would go on down to Savannah and drop the truck off afterwards. So we looked around with a budget of $1500 for the truck. We found a truck that seemed to be in decent shape, but the windshield was cracked. We replaced it – $250. Then a funny thing happened on the way to Savannah. Following behind in my air conditioned Cadillac, I noticed something leaking from the truck. We were in rural Tennessee, about 80 miles past Nashville. We pulled over at a rest stop and determined it was transmission fluid. We made for the nearest exit and asked around for a mechanic. It was July 4th weekend. No one was willing to look at it past being able to confirm that it was tranny fluid and it was not drivable.

I dreaded the worst while hoping for the best as we all loaded in the Cadillac and continued on to South Carolina. On the way back, we learned it was not going to be a quick fix in Po Dunk, TN. Disheartened, we went on back home and then began to negotiate with mechanics via long distance. There was a whole lotta looking for cheap parts to get the price down, but the long and short of it was another $1400 to get a rebuilt tranny for the truck. OK, this was God’s money, so I just said, “Father, if that’s how you want to spend your money, fine by me.”

Almost three weeks later, the truck was ready to be picked up. So off we went again from Arkansas, across Tennessee, to pick up the truck whose source of air conditioning was two front windows open going 60 mp. On we went to Georgia. Everything was good until Atlanta, when yet another muddy-looking substance starting leaving the truck at record speed. We pulled over and ascertained it was oil. Oh bother!! Well, we conducted a little experiment and learned we could make it about 50 miles down the road on a quart of oil, so we went to an auto store, bought a case, and headed on to Savannah. I knew my way around there better and thought if we could just get to Savannah, another repair would be easier to manage. This time, I kept the truck in my rearview because of oil it was spraying. Thank God no cop stopped us. The truck began to leak more and more oil, to the extent that we were only getting 10 miles to the quart by the time we pulled into Firestone on Martin Luther King, Jr. Street in Savannah.

At this point, I was so doggedly determined not to be beat by this thing, I didn’t care what it cost, darn it, this truck would be fixed and given to that man! Thank God, it was just a hole in the oil pan, and with a few other things we didn’t know were wrong, the total bill was about $250. The mechanic said something from the road must have flown up and punctured the oil pan – how odd.

That night, we pulled up at the man’s house and called him outside with an elaborate charade to give him the truck in a way that would really, really surprise him. It involved taking him to Wendy’s for ice cream. We had touched base with him earlier in the day while the truck was being repaired, just to make sure he would be there. When we arrived at his house (the truck was at Wendy’s), he had company and said he was very sorry and invited us in, but he didn’t feel he could leave to go to Wendy’s. That just iced the cake, that our surprise was muddled. We went to Wendy’s and picked up the truck and brought it back to him (along with Frostys for everyone) and just said “Here, have a truck,” or something anticlimactic like that.

The look on his face was priceless as he slowly understood that we were in fact giving him a truck. He started shaking and tearing and said he had been praying about the matter for some months because his truck was not safe to drive, and probably not legal to drive either. My husband was especially blessed by his reaction and I was very happy for that because all along John had just been going with this thing that he probably thought was some scarebrain idea rather than being a vehicle of blessing.

When it was all over and for months later, I thought and thought on that ordeal and wondered “why!” I believed all along that it was something God was leading me to do but everything was going wrong. It did occur to me that the devil didn’t want me to get that blessing or give it either, but I couldn’t understand why God wasn’t clearing the path a bit better. Everything was such a struggle. I’m writing this after five years and there is much I don’t recall, but I do remember enough to say that there was a lot more hassle and stress involved than I can articulate in a blog!

Back to Daniela and Peru…the following week in prayer meeting, I was able to give praise that Daniela had indeed gotten her visa amidst many trials. And again I pondered why. Of course, I know the scriptures on testing and if hope is the end result of all this testing then I’m going to have one big hope some day. But it still just leaves me with a question mark over my head. The next morning, a central tenet in the pastor’s sermon was this thought: God allows tests and trials in order to soften our hearts, not harden them. I’m still contemplating that.

And I’ve got a lot to chew on just now. We’re less than 48 hours out from the Peru trip and I just received a call that two of the participants are pulling out of their completely paid for trip. It’s mind boggling to me. The reason was too much work. Both are in full time ministry so I can’t say that they have their priorities out of order – either way they would be busy about the Lord’s work. But only one of these options is the Lord’s will. And I just don’t know which. Is this Satan distracting this couple from the view of the forest by waving trees in front of them, or is it God’s will that they don’t go? Either way, it’s a test for me because it immediately discouraged me. My husband said, “Just don’t let this discourage you.” So I guess that’s test for me – will I allow it to discourage me?

All along my prayer has been that God’s right group would go and that’s the assurance I cling to as I close this post now wondering, “Just who will be on this mission trip anyway?”

Daniela Bermudez and I made a deal that if she would work for me for a month, I would pay her way to the mission trip in Peru on July 7. Today Daniela concluded her month of work and it was very fruitful. She deserves the trip to Peru, and indeed, the tickets have been purchased, including a two-day excursion to Machu Picchu. In our best laid plans, we forgot to factor in swine flu. Daniela is Mexican and added requirements are being put on Mexicans now because of swine flu.

In order to get a visa to enter Peru, she has to present a medical certificate of health no more than one week prior to travel. OK. One week before July 7, Daniela will be in El Salvador on a mission trip. When she inquired to the Peruvian consulate in El Salvador, she learned that they only issue visas to foreigners who live in Peru, even though the Web site clearly states it issues visas to foreigners visiting El Salvador. This seemed so unbelievable that we had to confirm it a few times, but it is true. So heads up all you Euro backpackers who think you might make your way from El Salvador to Peru – you can’t if you need a visa to get into Peru.

Next we thought about having her hold up a couple of days when she connects through Dallas on her way home. A friendly consulate employee there told her over the phone that he would issue her a visa for all her trouble with El Salvador. Apparently there is some wriggle room with this 7 day advance requirement on the health certificate so that he could issue the visa about 15 days in advance of her arrival in Peru. But when he found out that Daniela has pushed the limits of her student visa, he retracted and said he couldn’t do it because she had no legal basis for being in the United States after today.

What about Mexico? She’s gone home today and has about 10 days before the El Salvador trip. If the 7 day advance requirement for the health certificate was flexible in Dallas, maybe it’s flexible in Mexico as well. So she called the closest Peruvian consulate to her today, the one in Monterrey, to learn that people from Chihuahua have to go to Mexico City to get visas for Peru. Mexico City is 20 hours by bus from Chihuahua! Why doesn’t she just walk to Peru for Pete’s sake? And flying to Mexico City from Chihuahua costs $400. It’s literally cheaper to come back to Dallas and fly to Mexico City than to fly from within Mexico. But $400 is just the flight. It takes three working days to get the Visa, so she would have to hold up in Mexico City for three days. Is this just completely unreasonable, or is it me?

Next we were trying to call the Peruvian consulate in Guatemala City. All day, no answer. And their Web site is no longer existent, apparently. But as I was working on this blog, I came across a service that gets visas for Americans or foreigners living in the U.S. and learned that apparently Mexicans have to return to Mexico to get their visa to go to Peru. I guess she could come back to Mexico City from El Salvador, get the visa, and then go back, changing her plane ticket to leave for Lima from three days later than scheduled. We’d also have to change her Peruvian flights from Lima to Cajamarca, cutting the trip from 11 days to eight.

There are other options, but they aren’t pretty: Cancel the El Salvador trip and leave for Lima from Mexico City, but that would suck to miss El Salvador. She could cancel the Peru trip, but that would suck too. Regardless of what she does, from what we can see now, it’s unavoidable for her to lose money.

I’ve done a lot of international travel and it’s always a challenge to time everything right, but the situation Daniela is in because of this swine flu thing is insane. And this whole experience has given me a better appreciation for how easy it is for Americans to just skirt around the globe at our leisure. We don’t even need a visa for Peru. And if we wanted to stay longer than the 90 days we’re given upon arrival, all we have to do is ask once we get there.

Please pray for a miracle that all of this might work out and Daniela will be able to do both trips. And check back in July to learn how it all went down.

Almost three weeks ago, I got a phone call, my caller ID said “private number,” from a man who identified himself as “Robert Dudley, D-u-d-l-e-y.” He said he was calling about a book he was working on, Unusual Unique Things in the United States, and he wanted to include my propane tank in the book. He had learned of it at www.Ohiobarnes.com:
This rarely happens to me, but in the first minute of conversing with Robert, I got really creeped out. My senses were on orange alert for the rest of the conversation, which is probably why I was able to remember so much of it and replay parts at random in my head over the next couple of weeks. To be honest, it could have been a very normal conversation, but because I was creeped out, some things he said or asked, threw up red flags for me – questions about my children, did my daughter ride a bus to school…
We ended the conversation with the understanding that Robert and his wife Barbara would be coming to photograph the propane tank and would call either Monday or Tuesday of the following week. After hanging up, I immediately started working on a backup for that visit. My mother was coming for the weekend – could I ask her to stay over? How about insisting he come after 4 p.m. when more people are around, but then Gwen would be here and maybe that was who he was after. I settled on getting my neighbor Jeff’s (see my hero from the last post) cell phone number and just keeping my phone handy. I told Jeff and his wife about it. I’m sure they thought I was/am paranoid!
Through the week of waiting for the Dudley’s visit to come around, I really struggled with fear and negative fantasy at night in particular. I’m no fiction writer, but when it comes to spinning worst-case scenarios, I could win a Booker Prize or something. I was having something of a relapse from the intense fear I felt for months after my baby Hunter died. I tried to keep the thoughts at bay by calling on the name of Jesus – and it worked, like it always does, but only for as long as I kept my eyes on Him. My focus kept shifting back to negative fantasy.
By Monday, I had actually calmed down quite a bit and wasn’t afraid to get the call that the Dudley’s were in town. In fact, I reasoned that if I did get the call, if a man and woman pulled up at my house, there would be no problem. Well, I didn’t get the call. The call is more than two weeks late now and I have no explanation for why I haven’t heard back.
On the last day I was expecting the call (Wednesday after the Monday-Tuesday timeframe Dudley had given me), I was still wrestling with negative fantasy. No call had spawned all kinds of new possibilities. In my devotion for that Wednesday, I prayed God to give me peace. I can’t stand being afraid. And God did. I read of the story of Jacob leaving Canaan after his son had ticked off the locals and how his clan got away without a problem because the terror of God fell upon the towns. I claimed this verse and it gave me peace. If Dudley had meant me any harm, I believed the terror of God had fallen upon him and he didn’t pursue it.
Just so no injustice is done to Dudley, I have to admit that there could be a lot of explanations as to why he never got back to me. But whether or not he was legit is not the point. The point is that God gave me peace over my negative imagination.
Well, that was sweet peace for one day.
The next day, I was taking a walk with Chaise (he was in a stroller) and a truck passed me just as I was about to go on to the no-outlet road that leads to my house. When I got about 20 feet down that road, I heard the truck come up behind me and stop at the T where my road and the county road meet. Three men without shirts and appearing to me to be drunk got out. I was down wind from them and could smell old beer mixed with body oder – gag! The driver yelled at me a question about whether the road they were on went back out to the highway. I answered a couple of questions about directions then I kept walking, civic duty done.
Another of the men yelled out, “She’s got a nigger baby! She’s got a nigger baby! Hey Bi…! Hey Bi… come back here!”
My split-second reaction was fury. I wanted to rip the cajones off that guy. But a voice loud and clear in my head said, “Just keep walking. Don’t look back.” So I did. And I didn’t hear anything else from any of them. Just the truck starting and pulling away. I pulled out my cell phone and called the police and reported them for driving drunk. They had two miles (one on gravel road) to go before they would be off that county road, so I thought if a police car happened to be in the vicinity, they might intercept them when they hit the state highway.
The incident set my mind reeling again. I had been on a no-outlet road when they saw me. They could find me again and the baby toys in the front yard would be a dead giveaway. Whereas Dudley was a big unknown, these guys were obviously not law abiding citizens and they obviously were very racist. I haven’t heard anyone say “nigger” outside of a movie or historical reference in almost two decades! I always joke with people when I’m giving them directions to my house that when they start to hear “Dueling Banjos” they’re almost there. But this was some serious back-woods stuff! And yet, if these guys were from my county, I know they weren’t from my neighborhood by the questions about directions they were asking.
Phoning the police, though I believe it to have been the right thing to do, actually worked against me later. Now I had all these revenge-related plot lines in my dark thoughts. This day was the worst. I was irrationally afraid.
The next morning, when my husband left for work, I went to the door that leads to our basement and even though it was locked, I put a chair under it. Then I brought my cell phone in the bedroom and locked that door. My actions had gone way past prudent into the realm of the ridiculous.
When I finally got up that morning, God met me at my morning devotion with another special selection. The devotion read: Don’t let your fears rule your actions.
Besides being just what I needed to hear, I had to acknowledge that a God big enough to put that sentence before my eyes on the day I most needed it must certainly care enough for me to protect me if those goons did come looking for me.
I wish I could say that was that and my mind was at peace from that point on. But the truth is that I continued to struggle. I had the verse from Genesis and the other devotion in my arsenal now and so I battled fear much more effectively. I was able to quickly redirect my thoughts when I caught myself slipping. But it wasn’t until last Sunday night that I really felt at peace.
Sunday night, I shared an abbreviated version of this post with my church family. They prayed for me – various ones prayed specifically for me – and as the words were coming from their mouths, I could feel peace coming over me. And that was that.